[Plugin] KML Tools (2.0.0-beta) — updated 31.05.2013

Aerilius

I had done more than a week testing and hadn't imagined that there still could be such issues.
Now I've uploaded a new version. I found a work-around to drop the IE8 requirement and fixed some more things. I hope it works this time.

lexmonteiro

It works fine now, ie7 and SU 7.1 free!

Thank you!

Tobobo

Thanks very much

BillB1

Hi there Aerilius.

You say
@unknownuser said:

it's now also easier to create and edit animated content for Google Earth

and I see there is a timespan option on the menu. Can you explain what this does and an example of how to use it?

Thanks

3dworks

is this working with SU version 8 on mac or is there another solution in the meantime? what i'm missing in SU 8 is the ability to batch capture a sequence of aligned terrains. the frame tool in SU8 is making a manual selection of an area around an already captured terrain very difficult. anyone?

cheers

markus

marktonium

Might be a silly question, but here it goes.

Is it possible to completely remove the entire process of downloading elevation data? I do not need it, as I am using the drape tool with the files, and can manually georeference the KML files.

I've tried deleting that portion of the code, but I know nothing about Ruby, so I really don't know what I'm doing.

Thanks.

This tool is exactly what I needed by the way, thanks for the development!

Aerilius

I think it should assume an elevation of 0 if it can't connect to the internet. So you could disconnect from the internet and after using the tool you can reconnect again. Tell me if that solves it

marktonium

Looks like that part of the script is working now (I re-downloaded the files, maybe they were/are corrupted for me).

I am getting the following error now, though:

no JSON returned (which I'm expecting)
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method []' for nil:NilClass> ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:737:in points_to_plane'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:737:in each' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:737:in points_to_plane'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:320:in polygon' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:205:in run2'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:205:in eachp' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:632:in each_with_index'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:632:in each' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:632:in each_with_index'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:632:in each' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:205:in run2'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:176:in each' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:176:in run2'
...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:114:in fetch_alt' ...kmlTools/kmlImport.rb:109:in call'

Thanks again.

Mark

Aerilius

@marktonium said:

I am getting the following error now, though:

Hi Mark,
I have fixed something that could have caused this error in line 737. After reading the kml file, the plugin could have come across some unexpected (empty) elements. Can you check if it works now?

Aerilius

@3dworks said:

is this working with SU version 8 on mac or is there another solution in the meantime?

Hi 3dworks,
It is not yet tested on mac, but it shouldn't contain anything specific that doesn't work on both platforms.

@3dworks said:

[...] the ability to batch capture a sequence of aligned terrains.

That's probably not in the scope of this plugin, but it's a question that many people ask. Technically it is not possible to do the batch part automatically (because one had to interfere with the Add location tool in a way that is impossible), but one could imagine a tool that helps to perfectly align the selection rectangle to the previous terrain.

ccreynol

It is hanging up on the "importing styles" when I try to import a Google Earth made .kml file, any thoughts? Your previous tool worked fine to import a simple ground tracing from a Google Earth .kmz file, is this new tool any improvement for this simple function? Thanks!

Aerilius

Hi,
the importing will probably be the problematic part of KML Tools because there is no simple and clean way in ruby to parse xml files and because kml files can occur in many different kinds.
If you open the ruby console before starting the import, can you send me the error message (first lines of the error)? Or you can pm me the kml file so that it's easier to find the cause of the problem.

If you refer to the KML linestring importer, this tool here is not limited to only "linestrings" but it's also ways more complex. So the simple tool is not a bad choice if it does the job sufficiently.

ccreynol

Why does this not work on international locations? My shapes are imported at strange sizes, occasionally with angles changed as well. Thoughts?

Gaieus

What do you mean by "internationallocations"? (Are there "nationallocations"? )

thomthom

I've been looking around at the various ruby based importers for SketchUp and I see that no one uses the Importer class. If this class is used the importer can be found in the native import list which would be very nice.
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/importer.html

Aerilius

@ccreynol said:

My shapes are imported at strange sizes, occasionally with angles changed as well. Thoughts?

If you can tell me more details and send me an example file that does not work as expected, I can have a look at it. SketchUp documents can only cover an area of some kilometers, so one shouldn't import too distant places, otherwise SketchUp behaves very weird (navigation won't work properly, clipping occurs and shapes can look strange).

Aerilius

@thomthom said:

Importer class

I had looked at it, but since no other plugin used it I had thought users would expect to find the importer in the Plugins menu. In general I like the idea of using existing standards, so I will add this in the next update. Especially that the Importer class also allows options dialogs ( Importer.do_options) sounds promissing.

thomthom

I think the reason why no-one else has used it is because it's simply over-looked. Which is a pity as it'd help clean up the menus and integrates the ruby importers with the native ones.

(I kind of spammed the forum of the importers I could find... .. in an attempt to bring focus to this unused class. )

Jim

But there isn't a corresponding exporter class. So if you did use the Importer class, the exporter would still need to go in the standard menus which would make the UI inconsistent.

thomthom

@jim said:

But there isn't a corresponding exporter class. So if you did use the Importer class, the exporter would still need to go in the standard menus which would make the UI inconsistent.

True, this would do well as a feature request.